By T R Ramachandran
The Health Care System in Uttar Pradesh has failed the people and chief minister Yogi Adityanath must accept responsibility for the death of about 70 kids so far at the Baba Raghav Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur.
The question that inevitably arises yet again is whether we in this country value human life at all. Alas, it is an all too familiar story of waking up to an alarming situation when the water has risen over one's head.
What is heart rending is that children died in neonatal and encephalitis wards on the inexcusable ground that the oxygen supply was cut off because the requisite payment had not been made to the vendor amounting to criminal negligence.
What is alarming is that the cold statistics of baby deaths doled out draws attention to anything from a dozen to at least one score children dying in that hospital every thirty odd days at least over the last four months.
Yogi Adityanath represented the Gorakhpur constituency in the Lok Sabha for nearly two decades till he resigned a few weeks back. Thousands of deaths having taken place at this centre since encephalitis was first detected there nearly four decades back.
In a span of six days earlier this month 63 deaths had occured in the hospital. A high alert should have been sounded under these circumstances. Several letters were written to the authorities concerned spread over five months about the lack of oxygen in the hospital but to no avail.
There is no doubt that the situation was extremely serious in the hospital as the constant supply of oxygen was unavailable being the only lifeline for seriously infected children.
Even as the Prime Minister has despatched experts from the national capital for extending medical support to the hospital, the ever persisting insitutional shortalls have remained unplugged rather than being rectified immediately.
The state administration cannot absolve itself of responsibility on the civic side. Gorakhpur, as evidenced in sprawling Eastern UP is prone to severe encephalitis beause of poor sanitation facilities and other problems including sewers and open defacation.
The hospital leaves much to be desired by way of public health management and happens to be the only institution in a widespread area treating infectious diseases. Last year Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for an AIIMS at Gorakhpur.
There is need to redouble efforts in strengthening primary health care facilities in the state. The tragedy is fast gaining political colour with opposition parties including the Congress accusing the state government of trying to suppress matters.
Amid differences of opinion between the UP health minister Siddharth Nath Singh and his junior Anupriya Patel, the former denied that there was any shortage of oxygen. He attributed the death of children to sepsis, pneumonia and other infections.
It was only in April amid much fanfare that the Yogi Adityanath government decided to go in for a major revamp of the healthcare system in the state. The endeavour is to bring the most marginalised and the poor into the health net by use of technology.
It proposed introducing telemedicine along with mobile medical units moving from place to place with doctors and medicines. Notwithstanding these grandiose plans negligence has led to irreversible consequences which should have been anticipated and dealt in an effective and timely manner.
Studies reveal that in the last 15 years, UP's population increased by 25 per cent but its public health centre decreased by eight per cent. Rural health statistics indicate how successive state governments have neglected affordable, accessible and quality healthcare for the the country's most populous state of 20 crore people.
Studies reveal that a newborn in UP is expected to live four years fewer than in neighbouring Bihar, five years fewer in Haryana and seven years fewer in Himachal Pradesh.
UP contributes the largest of almost all communicable disease deaths. Universal immunisation plays a key role in decreasing child mortality. About half of the state's children are not vaccinated.
Healthcare has been low on the priorities of successive governments in Lucknow. The per capita expenditure on health increased in UP from Rs 260 to Rs 372 over four years in 2010. Compare this to Rs 356 to Rs 560 in Kerala and from Rs 299 to Rs 579 in Tamil Nadu over the same period.
(The writer is a senior journalist and commentator)
